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Leaves: Blow or Rake?

September 09, 2016

When we lived in the city, stinky, loud gas-powered leaf blowers drove us nuts. Cheap, fly-by-night lawn companies seemed to constantly blow all sorts of crap throughout the neighborhood — never pulling out a rake to gather and dispose of whatever they blew into the gutter or onto the next door neighbor’s property.

Raking is great exercise! In small residential gardens, a rake is probably all you’ll really need to keep up with leaf detritus.

When my elderly mom reported on her almost-daily leaf blowing chores, we were more appreciative of her use of leaf blower. She lived in a residential neighborhood. But, hers was on a slippery slope, in a deciduous forest that shed leaves for months. And, she used a relatively quiet electric, plug-in blower. She also used a rake to gather up her leaves to make compost.

When you have acres of forest that sheds leaves from summer through fall, a leaf blower really helps keep on top of all the work.

When we purchased a couple of partially forested acres with a lot of gravel paths, I knew we’d need to acquire a few gardening power tools. I really didn’t want to be mixing gas and toting around a heavy petrol-powered backpack blower. And, a corded electric blower would require a ridiculous number of extension cords.

Fortunately, EGO brand just released a light-weight backpack blower with a rechargeable lithium ion battery.

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It’s new-to-market, but a few colleagues had good things to say about EGO’s hand-held blowers, so I rolled the dice, and ordered the backpack blower. (Garden Mentors paid for the Ego Power+ Backpack blower. Fiskars did supply Garden Mentors for the rake shown for trial use. Garden Mentors is not being paid or otherwise compensated for this article, except for the free rake.)

Battery powered leaf blowers are less polluting than gas ones. They don’t emit fumes & are much more quiet. Plus, they now come in lightweight backpack models!

So far the blower is working great. It took just a couple of hours to charge the battery. It is easy to assemble, well, except for the blower tubes, which require stronger hands than I have. But, it was a one-time assembly job, so no biggie. It’s easy to put on and to carry. I wish the “on” trigger had a locking mechanism; it gets really exhausting to hold that thing on while you blow leaves for an hour or two. (It is easy to rig it into a locked position if you don’t mind bending the manufacturer’s “rules.”)

When using a leaf blower on gravel paths, take care to use low settings that don’t send gravel flying. Raking can work on gravel, but again, take care not to rake your gravel into your leaf piles.

The manual recommended ear protection, but I found the machine so quiet that I took mine off, and my ears weren’t ringing when I was done. I did bind up my long hair, wear tall boots, long pants & big sunglasses for body protection. I had garden gloves on most of the time too. My back wasn’t tired or shaky and my weak hands weren’t aching after blowing leaves for a couple of hours two days in a row.

And, yes, it will blow for a few hours at a time — if you use a low setting. If you put it on high or use “turbo” often, it will run out of juice quickly. But, it will recharge quickly too.

Whether you rake or blow, be sure to save your leaves for creating luscious compost!

Raking up stray leaves or mounding them into a compost heap is the perfect job while we’re waiting for that battery to recharge. Rakes are still an important part of our tool arsenal, but getting up mountains of alder and other leaves just wasn’t going to happen without a little Ego boost (pun completely intended).

Now to decide if we really need to buy a chainsaw before winter. (Ego, if you’re listening, we’d love to receive one of yours to try out!)

In the meantime, get out there and start gathering up your fallen leaves. Once those leaves pile up and get soggy, getting them relocated to your compost pile will be a lot more difficult — whether you’re raking or using a power tool. Rake early. Blow often. And, keep those manna-from-heaven leaves to feed your compost-hungry soil!

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(You can support this blog by buying through our links. Purchases made through the affiliate links on this page and others on this site pay a small percentage to Garden Mentors but don’t cost you anything extra. Thank you for buying and helping support us!)